Australia part two/New Zealand-North Island

Ended the rest of Australia on a good note...we took the great ocean road down to Melbourne which was a windy coastal road with a lot of cool photo stops and hikes. We got to see the Blowhole, the Grotto where God's mighty ocean almost swept two americans out to sea (matt and I), saw the 12 apostles (of which only 8 rocks are left) and various other cool rock and cave formations on the trip. Got into Melbourne which is a huge city and I can't drive in even though I'm almost used to driving on the left side, and matt is quite used to just closing his eyes and praying. Found Melbourne to be a nice city once you were on foot and home to an amazing $8 large pizza. We completed the Australia experience by taking a tram down to the 90,000 seat Melbourne Cricket Ground to watch our first game of Aussie Rules Football which is kinda like a cross between soccer, football, three flies up, volleyball and basketball, but very entertaining. We sat 2 rows back from the field and watched the Richmond Tigers wail on the Melbourne Devils 124- 75. I rooted for the underdogs while matt chose his team after they were up 39-16. On our last day in Melbourne we were returning the car and filled up on petrol at the filling station and I went to pay and the woman at the counter started motioning for me to leave. A man who looked like he was robbing the place kept pointing his finger at me like a gun and motioning for me to leave us well while making throat-cutting gestures with his hands. Needless to say we left and didn't get to pay for our gas, but called the police and haven't heard the story yet. Saw Fantastic 4 downtown and enjoyed the rest of our day (safely!) Even got to catch a late showing at a downtown diner of the rugby game where the New Zealand All Blacks beat South AFrica 26-21 (woohoo!) Speaking of New Zealand, it has been amazing so far. Once we got out of Aucland and the big city, we have had the best 3 days in a row possible. We picked up our tiny little green Toyota rental car nicknamed "Kermit" and headed down to Waitomo. Drove through heaps of beautiful Lord Of The Rings style scenery while of course listening to the soundtrack and it is amazing how quickly it goes from hobbit hills to deep forest to snow covered peaks. Driving is a lot easier as long as you can remember the Beyonce song..." to the left, to the left." In Waitomo we had the awesome experience of exploring the glow worm caves. First we rappelled 100 feet into an underground cave in our wet suits and flashlight helmets where we caved underground through a dark river. We got to see the eerie glow of tiny worms hanging from the ceiling and then "black water raft" in inner tubes back down the river and then rock climb back out of the caves. The next day we made friends with a Japanese guy named Shinya who drove with us to Rotorua where we got to hike along the geothermal valleys of geysers, hot springs and steaming rocks. It was so strange but really really cool! Yesterday has been the highlight so far. We got to do the Tongariro Crossing up in the snow covered mountains of the north island. With our guide/friend Sarah who is a cute little Kiwi with a lot of spunk and a love of life we hiked the 17km crossing between and up Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe (which is actually Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings!) We had a pretty good hike up in cramp-ons and ice axes that led to an amazing view of the whole island, and concluded the trek by sliding down the other side of the mountain in the snow! Incredible day and one of the best days Sarah had ever seen weather-wise so we lucked out! Drove down to Wellington so we could catch the ferry in the morning over to the south island for our last week. We plan to do a little more ice climbing, see the Fox Glacier and maybe do a bit of snowboarding. Sweet as! Having the time of our lives...see you all in a week or so!

Australia part one

Hey guys, "How you going?!" Well Australia has been nothing like matt and I envisioned it to be but it has been an amazing country nonetheless! We flew into Sydney airport on wednesday morning and found the city to be just that...a huge city. We found a hostel in what we later found was the sleazy prostitute area of town and decided to walk around the whole city. It was actually quite pretty for a metropolis, but still not our style. We did a huge loop around and saw everything from the harbour bridge and the opera house up close and had some gelatto in the harbour. Had a nice steak and mash dinner at Scruffy Murphy's Irish pub and thankfully found this country to be a land of the tasty $5 steaks. Found a nice pub with a bunch of hooligan Rugby fans and cheered on the New South Wales Blues with a few blue beers. The next day had a great intercultural experience by getting our rental car and freaking out as both matt and I tried to get accustomed to driving on the wrong side of the road. Also saw a bunch of local flaura and fauna as we almost hit a cute wallaby on the road. The sky here is so beautiful and huge and easy to remember God as you stare up. We headed up toward Byron Bay, our northernmost goal and saw some neat things along the way including a golf course full of hundreds of kangaroos on (walk backwards when you leave so they don't "jump" you from behind!) a couple of neat walks up to lighthouses interrupted by a cute wallaby in front of us, tasty kebabs, meat pies and more steak! Byron was a cool little hippy town with a gorgeous beach that we stayed at but decided we weren't going to go north from here and started heading back toward Melbourne where our flight is out of. On Sunday we had the amazing experience of going to two church services at the world famous Hillsong Church in Sydney where the people were in the thousands but very very friendly and amazing worship and speaking. We've been starting to blend into the native culture with the aussies quite nicely recently...getting down the lingo, learning that chicken parma (parmesan) and steak sangas (sandwiches) are both awesome to eat and cost half as much if you order in the pub. You also get to hang out with a bunch of fun loving rowdy aussies who will explain the rules of all types of rugby to you, show you how to drink beer like water and cuss out their neighbor. They are hilarious people. We've been especially stoked to be heading down to the country where the accents are thicker and the culture is as well. Matt and I saw one of the coolest things on the trip so far by accident. The blue mountains were so caked in fog that we decided to go further down the road and see what the wentworth falls looked like. No one had mentioned them being anything spectacular so we didn't think much of them. When we got to the lookout, the fog was swirling and thick and it started to rain and our view was non-existent so we decided to walk down to the falls. It turned out to be a gorgeous hike down steps steeper than you can imagine and ladders that go straight down, rope bridges and a lot of mud. It was a multilayer gigantic falls where you can stare at them from the bottom and wonder how God made something so beautiful and powerful! Next stop is the Grampions which are supposed to be some of the highest peaks in Australia, but are relatively low by American standards. We are staying in a little hostel right outside of them tonight and the further we go south the colder it is getting...just put the long underwear on tonight. We also got a chance to try out our headlamps tonight as we went koala hunting in the middle of nowhere and happened upon another huge group of kangaroos staring us down! Hmmm..well internet was not found last night... sitting outside a bar and "using" their wireless internet since our other hostel didn't have it. The Grampions turned out to be gorgeous and I almost died coming down a flight of slippery metal stairs as it was raining. God has everything completely under control because I slipped down the whole thing and came away with just a dirty bum! Well that's about it for down under. We're heading toward Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road for the next few days and then over to New Zealand on the 24th. Miss and love you guys! Cheers mates!

Fiji!!

Bula (hello), friends and family! Well it has been a very eventful couple of days so far! We got into Nadi airport in Fiji at 5:30 am on friday and had no idea what we going to do at all, so we basically started walking. rather than hire a $20 cab ride, we braved the "locals only" bus for 50 cents a piece and took a ride downtown. Nadi itself is just a big city on an island that looks like most other cities and is a little shady. We decided to get out of there as quickly as possible and met a Christian brother named Lai, who took us by the hand and guided us to where the boats went out and walked on just as it was leaving. Everyone kept asking which "all inclusive island resort" we were headed to and we kept telling everyone we didn't know. After befriending Mariaye, a woman who worked on the boat, she hooked it up for us so we could stay in the Yasawa Island chain in a village called Naisisili on the Island of Nacula. She used to live in that village and knew a nice man named Navi Vola Vola and his wife, Sai Mathawa who we could stay with for free. After a 4 hour boat ride (which matt miraculously didn't get sick on!) we were ferried ashore and instead of going to the resort with the rest of the sunburned tourists, we followed a man into a small village and got to know our new host family.
We got to stay with the Vola Vola family from Friday to Monday and it was very different but a lot of fun. Native Fijians are very friendly people many of whom are Christians because of the missionaries and they live very similar to the New Testament idea of community. They all band together and help each other, they honestly love their neighbors, they fish for each other, watch each other's kids and just look out for one another. No one is rich except maybe the chief who gets free kava (alcohol) and $5 from every tourist who comes to his village. For the most part it is very conservative with very modest attire worn by all and a very male dominated culture. Our female hosts did all cooking, cleaning, and other chores non stop all day. When they served us meals they had separate plates with all the dregs of the food and weren't permitted to eat until the men finished. It was kind of awkward eating a meal while the women watched and then laying around on the floor with the other guys afterward while the women cleaned it all up. their culture longed for western influence but we kept assuring them they had a lot more figured out than we did about life. For instance, it is so peaceful and no one fights or argues. You never hear raised voices or anger and Fiji time is the only clock in town. Time didn't seem to exist at all. In fact only 2 people had watches that we saw and no one worried about being on time at all. There were bells for church but they included a 30 minute warning bell, a 10-minute-til bell.
We kept ourselves busy by eating a whole lot and drinking a lot more tea than we were both used to. Most of our meals included Kasava root, breadfruit, amazing bananas, curry, noodles and ban (rolls). The most Fijian we got with food was eating smoked sardines that they caught that morning while Tai(grandma) Vola Vola picked the bones out for us. We also got to take a hike to the top of the mountain to see the whole island, snorkeled a couple times in crystal clear blue water, and mostly got to hang out with people and learn their culture. Bathrooms were very interesting with humongous spiders which were "friendly", showers were pouring a bowl of water over ourselves in a cement room, the house was a very small wood paneled structure with a thatched roof which had been built by the whole village, and the kitchen was a separate room with no walls, just a roof, thatched floor mat and side beams. Very cool culture overall...got to attend two church services, one was a very strict methodist service, and the other a very charismatic All Nations Church service. They had "Pastor Matt" come up and teach a short lesson and it was very well recieved and I think by doing so he has consequently committed himself and Pastor Bryan back home to coming back to Fiji in October for a men's conference.
After a very cool 4 days in the village we headed back to the main island Viti Levu and found a pretty nice hostel for about $15 american with a warm shower and decent food. Nothing wrong with Fijian food, but if I have another piece of Kasava it will be too soon! Well we are off to Auckland New Zealand in the morning for a one day layover and then to Sydney for 11 days. THanks for everyone's prayer, we are heaving a blast! Until next time...Nate and Matt (Na-than-yel and Mathayu) signing out!

Blog Test- Switchfoot Bro-Am

Alright so I am testing this thing out to see if I like blogging or not and if I'm going to want to continue it while I'm down under in Aussie Land. Finished my Final for my masters class on Friday night, went down to AJ's to get served by our favorite waitress Ashley before she left for Tulare and then headed down to Encinitas with Tim and Corina as I got observe the cute couple from the backseat just months before their wedding. A little "3rd wheelish" but fun! Got down to his cousin Jesse's at about 1:30am and slept in to wake to his aunt's famous breakfast burritos and doughnuts! Got down to Moonlight Beach to find the surf part of the competition had been canceled because of a gas spill in the ocean and that gave way to a Dodgeball tournament. Very funny to watch the guys from Switchfoot pegging other surfers with rubber balls while dressed as gorillas! The concert itself was pretty cool. Nothing fantastic til Jason Mraz got up there and then he had all attention with an amazing stage presence. Just him and his guitar, Toka Rivera on Conga, and a bass player but he blew the rest out of the water with his set. Amazing voice...someone to aspire to be like for sure! Afterward, Jon Foreman from Switchfoot came on to sing a few folk songs with Nickel Creek which were ok ,but then the rest of the guys came on to rock the place. Played a couple favorites, then invited the other bands to the stage to close out the show with a great rendition of Weezer's surf anthem "Surf Wax America". Great show, headed back to Tim's cousin's a while, played with his cute lil nephew Raymond and hit the road at midnight. 3 or 4 coffees, 3 pee breaks and a lot of tomfoolery and some good talks with Tim later we got back to Grover about 4:45. Don't know how I made it to church today but I know my bed is calling now!